Bribes and Backdoors: Huawei’s Lobbying Scandal Shakes the EU

On March 13, police raided more than 20 addresses across Europe and sealed two offices in the European Parliament amid suspicions of bribery by Chinese technology giant Huawei. According to media reports, Huawei is suspected of using “items including expensive football tickets, lavish gifts, luxurious trips to China, and even cash” to secure support from members of the European Parliament when the EU was considering limits to the company’s role in European telecommunications networks.

Security Risks

Founded by a former member of the Chinese military, Huawei has long prided itself on its “wolf culture”, which it presents as a relentless drive for success at any cost. As recently as 2019, the company was suing researchers who highlighted these links. Yet, despite Huawei’s repeated assertions of independence, researchers have demonstrated that its ownership structure suggests a close relationship with the Chinese government.

This combination of a ruthless corporate culture and deep ties to the Chinese party-state makes Huawei an exceptionally risky provider of telecommunications infrastructure for any democratic country. Over the past decade, its executives have faced espionage charges in Poland, it has been accused of using back doors in IT systems provided to the African Union to access sensitive documents and conversations, and it has been charged with sanctions circumvention in the United States.

As a result of these recurring scandals, and despite being one of the few companies capable of deploying 5G infrastructure, Huawei has increasingly come to be seen as a security risk in Europe.

Fighting Dirty

To counter European skepticism, Huawei has conducted extensive lobbying campaigns for almost a decade. According to the Dutch investigative outlet Follow the Money, beginning in 2019, Huawei expanded its memberships in Brussels-based think tanks and lobbying groups and significantly increased the size of its financial contributions to these organizations.

Alongside these financial efforts, the company also engaged in opaque and unethical lobbying practices in EU member states such as Estonia and Lithuania, involving gifts similar to those now under investigation in Belgium. In Serbia, Huawei funneled hundreds of thousands of euros through offshore companies in tax havens to facilitate meetings with Serbian officials.

Huawei’s close ties to the Chinese state have also afforded it uniquely aggressive advocacy from Chinese diplomats. In 2019, the Chinese ambassador to Germany warned that German car manufacturers would face economic repercussions in China if Berlin reduced Huawei’s role in its 5G network. A year later, Beijing’s envoy to Sweden issued similar threats to Swedish companies after Stockholm decided to exclude the tech giant from its telecommunications infrastructure.

Conclusion

Huawei’s aggressive lobbying and intimidation tactics have been, to some extent, successful. As of March 2024, more than half of the EU’s 27 member states had yet to ban Huawei from their mobile networks. Notably, Germany—the bloc’s largest economy—continues to waver after years of indecision. Hopefully, the recent revelations about the extent of Huawei’s unethical influence efforts will finally snap undecided policymakers out of their inaction and encourage them to ban this clear threat to the security of European telecommunications infrastructure.